


Thee and Me In Our Sanctuary

by AndreaLyn



Category: Penny Dreadful (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-19
Updated: 2014-09-19
Packaged: 2018-02-17 22:50:30
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,031
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2325995
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AndreaLyn/pseuds/AndreaLyn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>“You don’t make much sense,” is all Ethan says. Victor might be a creepy little fuck at times, but Ethan can’t picture him taking the sort of strides to get even near to what Ethan’s done. Another deep breath and the intoxication of that scent in combination with the alcohol begins to be too much. “God <i>damn</i>,” he spits out, gripping the table.</i>
</p>
<p>Ethan's having trouble reigning in the wolf. There's two good options he can take to regain control and it's a lucky thing Victor's willing to help him out with that.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Thee and Me In Our Sanctuary

Since the night at the Grand Guignol and the full moon in the sky, Ethan’s been torn between two worlds. To hell with a demimonde that exists in the shadows, he’s living in one all the goddamn time and it’s driving him crazy. Normally, when the full moon fades, waxes, or wanes, he loses the wolf’s urges and slides back into the instincts of a man, not a beast. Maybe it’s grief from losing Brona, but he’s having one hell of a time making that transition this time.

And the worst of it all is the senses. 

Walking around London with a heightened sense of smell and sight is pretty much like getting smacked in the face with clouds full of coal and soot and it chokes his throat, which is already being wrung tight with grief.

Smell’s the worst of it, though.

Because even though Brona’s gone, he gets passing hints of her scent every once in a while, like her ghost is lingering, aiming to drive him mad. One day when he’s shopping to take his mind off the city driving him mad, he even thinks she’s standing there beside him, it’s so strong, but then when he turns, it’s his good friend the Doctor perusing through a range of weapons too advanced for the likes of him.

“I give you one shooting lesson and suddenly you’re buying an armory?” Ethan tries to keep the shake from his voice, tries to ignore the baser parts of his brain (those animalistic urges) that have been screaming at him to fuck or fight and have been for weeks. Right now, he wants to have a conversation with a friend.

He’ll have to pick a fight later, probably, just to calm down the edge of it. It’s a good thing London’s so obliging when it comes to rough men looking for the scrape of knuckles. Before the situation with Miss Ives, he’d have counted on Dorian Gray as a convenient backup for a fuck, but now that Ethan’s aware of Dorian’s part in that dismal play, that seems messy. Ethan’s never really gone in for messy.

Victor looks surprised to see Ethan and _fearful_.

Ethan’s pretty sure that’s the smell he’s picking up, which is odd. Maybe in their early days, the fear would’ve been understood (expected, even), but after everything they’ve been through, it seems strange. “Not guns,” Victor corrects, turning the ornate box around to give Ethan a look. “These are scalpels and knives I first purchased when I came to London. After several demanding months of my landlord’s stubborn insistence, I pawned them to pay rent.”

“And now you’ve got the money.”

Victor’s smile is wry and smug. “Care of Sir Malcolm’s fervent quest for revenge, yes,” he agrees, closing the box. “And you? Are you here to procure more props for your show? You never did say, what do you mean to do, now that...?”

He doesn’t finish the sentence, but Ethan hears the implications.

_Now that Brona’s gone. Now that Mina’s dead. Now that Miss Ives is facing a bigger foe._

“Don’t rightly know,” Ethan replies, trying to keep a jovial tone. “Once I feel back to myself, I think maybe I’ll see if anyone’s looking for a hired hand.”

Victor regards him curiously, tipping his head to the side. Ethan has to keep himself from breathing in deeply because the intoxicating smell that Victor is putting off is getting too damn distracting – it’s a heady rush of drugs, fear, curiosity, and the faintest hint of Brona, like it clings to Victor after he’d taken her body away. Ethan thinks he could get high from a smell like that, at least if he keeps letting his wolf have control.

His impulses are straining to get the better of him and Ethan knows from experience that if he doesn’t cater to them soon, he’s bound to lose control and that’s how the police end up on the scene picking through bodies and looking for a monster.

He wonders what Victor would think to know that all this time they’ve been hunting monsters and Ethan’s the worst of them all. 

“Do you want to get a drink?” Ethan says before he’s even realized he intends to make the offer. In a way, he’s trying to reclaim old habits and maybe it’s that lingering scent of Brona wafting through London, but he can almost pretend that whiskey in the morning will bring her with it, sitting down at his table and exuding the warmth and joy that went against her name.

Victor looks shocked at the offer and worried. Ethan’s starting to realize that he’s not wrong about that fear. Victor’s afraid of something.

For a terrifying moment, Ethan wonders if somehow, Victor _knows_.

He’s getting ahead of himself. Victor’s probably just been on the edge of a blade of fear the whole time, new worlds opened up to him and monsters pawing at his nightmares. Ethan’s usually better at keeping his senses to himself is all. Victor tucks the leather satchel against his side and nods, in a jerking way that seems as if he’s surprised to find himself agreeing to such a thing. 

“Yes. Yes, I imagine after everything we’ve been through lately, a drink is just the thing.”

They find a bar that’s not more than thirty steps from the shop and Ethan orders them brandy seeing as whiskey dredges up untold numbers of good and bad memories and the good doctor had muttered about whiskey burning with no great pleasure. They find their way to the darkest table in the entire bar and Ethan makes his way through two full glasses before they speak.

“I still dream of that house,” Victor says, breaking the silence. “The nightmares will not leave me anytime soon in this lifetime, I fear.”

Ethan breaths in deeply and is accosted with an overwhelming scent rolling off of Victor. It’s Brona, but it’s more than that. There’s an unearthly note in Victor’s clothes and skin, like he’s balancing the line between life and death. Those sunken eyes, that pale skin, it’s like the man is slipping over without realizing it. 

“I’ve seen worse,” Ethan says, but it isn’t to compare and compete. It’s a confession, if he’s honest. “I’ve done worse.”

“I hardly believe that.”

“You should,” Ethan says aggressively, thinking of the newspapers printing his exploits. He hasn’t read the headlines about the massacre at the bar, but he knows they’re out there. He knows that one day, he won’t leave the scene of the crime in time and someone’s going to find out what he is. They’re going to see him for the monster he truly is. “I told Brona once that there are such sins in my past that I couldn’t bear to turn around.”

Victor’s eyes widen imperceptibly and his breath catches.

If Ethan were a mortal man without an affliction, he wouldn’t have heard it. Being what he is, he did and he’d heard the accompanying stutter of his heart.

“In America?”

“There, too,” Ethan concurs. “Does it scare you to think I could be a monster?”

Victor shakes his head furiously, his knuckles turning white as he clasps his glass tighter. “No,” he exhales the word. “No, I have seen monsters. Whatever sins you think you bear, Ethan, can hold no candle to mine. And yet, it is my fate to endure the consequences of my actions.” His eyes widen and he stares at Ethan and fear lingers there. “I will bear it on my shoulders, as best as I can.”

“You don’t make much sense,” is all Ethan says, seeing as he can’t imagine Victor doing anything out of the ordinary. He might be a creepy little fuck at times, but Ethan can’t picture him taking the sort of strides to get even near to what Ethan’s done, in the past. Another deep breath and the intoxication of that scent in combination with the alcohol begins to be too much. “God _damn_ ,” he spits out, gripping the table.

“Ethan, are you all right?”

Victor’s voice swims in his head. He feels like he had the night with Dorian, like something’s clouding his mind. It’s the wolf, he knows, unwilling to rear back and let the animal urges fade. 

“Ethan,” Victor chastises, this time with a little more _oomph_ in his words, which sounds vaguely like good ol’ Dad’s disappointment. “Have you been hiding something from me? Some sort of disease? It’d be a very poor choice on your part to withhold medical information from a doctor,” he notes wryly.

Ethan chuckles under his breath, shaking his head. “Oh, _doctor_ ,” he breathes out. “You haven’t got the faintest idea of the disease in my blood.”

“You cannot know if you do not try and tell me.”

Ethan licks his lower lip and decides that they’ve spent way too much damn time sitting around doing nothing at all when his animal urges are scratching at him and threatening to tear him apart. Fight or fuck, fuck or fight, he’s got two choices and with Brona’s scent lingering around them, he knows which one of them he prefers.

“Grab the bottle, Victor,” Ethan coaxes. “And let’s get out of here.”

He wonders if this is a mistake. He’d heard what Miss Ives had said in those terrible weeks in that horrible house and while he’s not entirely sure he believes every word for truth, there’s a genuine chance that Dr. F might be a virgin after all and Ethan isn’t planning on fighting him. Then again, hasn’t he done his part in making sure Victor’s well capable of handling himself?

There’s a pile of dead vampire consort corpses that say he’s been successful in that much.

They walk quickly through the streets and by silent agreement, they find neutral ground. Ethan doesn’t want to go back to his and Victor doesn’t seem very keen to go back to his place, which he’s mentioned is caught up in the bad side of the city. Every few steps, Victor glances back over his shoulder, as if he’s frightened of his own shadow.

“What are you always looking for?”

“I don’t know,” Victor admits. “I had thought I’d put an old worry to rest, but I find it lingers. I think it always will.”

There he goes, not making much sense again. Still, it’s not like Ethan can begrudge him for holding onto secrets. He’s got his own wallop of a confession that isn’t planning on making its way past his lips anytime soon. Ethan smiles, all charm and guile, and passes coin over the counter as he rents them a room. 

“Would you like a bed with that?” the lady at the desk asks, gaze flickering to Victor standing behind Ethan and fidgeting as if he’s waiting for his next hit – who knows, the kid might be, given the predilection for drugs he apparently has. 

Ethan smiles, real pretty like, and knows he needs to get into a private place before his snarls start spittling with saliva and malice, needs to prevent his fingernails from turning into weapons, and before the man’s thoughts can give way to the creature. “Don’t matter,” he says, accepting the copper key she presses into his palm with a ‘thanks, darling’ before he leads them on, the green glass bottle of brandy fixed in Victor’s hands.

They wind their way through decrepit hallways and up creaking stairs to the room she’s let to them, which doesn’t have a bed, but does have a chaise.

It’ll do.

“I got something to ask you,” Ethan says. “And it’s going to be intrusive.”

“I very much doubt you could surprise me,” Victor says, making a face of disgust as he plucks up two glasses and begins to polish the inside of them with his vest, pouring the brandy to levels that are probably ill-advised. He passes one over to Ethan and when he inhales deeply, he’s surprised (and pleased) to find that the fear’s faded away. 

Maybe all it took was a change of scenery after all. 

“Was she right?”

“Who?” Victor replies, lips pressed to the rim of the glass.

“Miss Ives,” Ethan clarifies. “She said you were a virgin. Virgin doctor,” he drawls, taking a seat on the edge of the chaise with the drink in his hand, eyes roaming over him like he’s looking for some telltale sign that’d give him confirmation or denial of such a thing. He knows he shouldn’t put names to things because if he’s learned anything, naming a thing gives it life. 

Victor’s sunken eyes trace over Ethan’s body, as if he’s ready to give as good as he gets, and he sips at his drink. “The name suits, though I dislike it. There’s no shame,” he says. “My pursuits have been educational and practical and I don’t regret the lack of physical contact as an exchange for the reaches of scientific grasp I am achieving.”

“Don’t you ever get lonely?”

“I am never alone,” Victor says, but there’s something in the way he says it that makes Ethan think that’s not a good thing. “Dr. Van Helsing said that I should look up from my studies more often, so that I don’t miss the world.”

“What happened to him? Sir Malcolm brought him in for the hematology, didn’t he?”

“There was an … incident,” Victor says curtly. “Why do you care if I am a virgin, Mr. Chandler?” he asks, before Ethan can ask what sort of incident and wonder what else is on those streets. “Does it offend you?”

“People make their own choices, as far as I’m concerned.”

“Then why do you care?”

“Because right now, if I don’t touch someone, I think I might go crazy,” Ethan admits, his breath straining against his chest, as if the wolf is scratching at him and warning him that if he doesn’t sate his urges, he’s going to go crazy. “And I find that someone opening me up and fucking me is usually the best way to calm me down.”

The glass pressed to his thigh, Ethan parts his knees a little wider.

“As we’ve established,” Victor says, somewhat anxious, though his gaze falls between Ethan’s knees, “I have very little knowledge in this arena. What about Dorian Gray? There’s history there.”

“Whole bloody novels of it,” Ethan agrees, which he thinks ought to be the answer as to why he isn’t there and why he’s here, instead. “I’m not a half bad teacher and I get the feeling you’re an excellent student.”

Victor’s laugh is both knowing and condescending, but his gaze hasn’t slipped away from the growing bulge in Ethan’s trousers and he thinks, _gotcha_. He pushes his knees a little further apart, thinking that a simple release might calm him down so every breath he takes doesn’t bring with it torment and sadness. He doesn’t think doing this himself is going to work because he needs to feel subjugated and subdued, like he’s giving the wolf a message that it needs to heel.

“I haven’t got any lubrication…”

“Spit’ll do,” Ethan says. “I’m no wilting flower.”

Besides, he’s kind of hoping that if it hurts, it’ll be something to hold onto. 

“You’re thinking about doing it.”

“I haven’t said yes,” Victor points out. Ethan knows that isn’t true. If he hadn’t said yes, he would have finished his drink and left. He’d look anywhere else. He wouldn’t be rubbing his thumb over his lower lip like he’s contemplating the scientific approach he ought to take. “Of course, if I were to say yes, it’d help a great deal if you took your clothes off.” Curt, perfunctory, but definitely an order.

“I always like it when I have help in that respect.”

Victor nods sharply and sets his brandy down, approaching with two unsure steps as he sets his hands on the collar of Ethan’s shirt. “I have more experience undressing those who don’t give much fight back,” he admits. Ethan grabs at Victor’s wrist hard enough to bruise, a sudden impulse he can’t ignore because thinking about corpses makes him think about Brona and he doesn’t want to think about her right now. 

“Do you want me to fight back?”

Victor begins swift work with his free hand, undoing buttons, and Ethan loosens his grip on the wrist when it becomes clear he’s getting what he wants. With every inch he traverses lower, he gets more confident and by the time he’s grabbing at his trousers, Ethan sees a different man looming on top of him. 

He’s definitely not the same man he met so long ago, butchering corpses in a back room.

“Remember,” Victor says, when Ethan is down to his briefs. “I’ve never done this before.”

“You keep saying.”

“Only to remind you that I might need…encouragement,” he says, with a flick of his gaze to his own crotch. 

Ethan grins as he shifts his ass forward, one hand on the small of Victor’s back where he stands between his knees and the other sliding into his trousers to cup at his cock, considering as he begins to slowly stroke. He’s got plenty of experience in the act of seduction, but this is basic. “Why didn’t you say so?” he wonders, voice warm and sticky with the pleasure of bringing Victor so close that he can feel the heat roll off his body. “This part, I’m not half bad at.” He cranes his gaze up, watching Victor attentively and taking pleasure in the way he responds to the harder touches, his thumb rubbing over the head of his cock. “You like that?”

“I think there’s plenty of physical evidence to prove that I do,” he heatedly replies.

“I like hearing it,” Ethan says. “Do you like that?” he repeats.

“ _Yes_ ,” Victor breathes out, head falling until his chin touches his chest. He slides a hand lower to pluck Ethan’s hand out from his trousers, undoing his shirt and working to match Ethan’s current state of undress. When the boots are nudged to the side, he stares down at Ethan, as if wondering what comes next.

Ethan reaches out for Victor’s palm as he uses his other hand to strip himself completely. When he’s got Victor’s hand in his, he leans forward and spits, knowing this is gonna hurt, but that he needs something rough to pull him back down to the human side of his mind that’s been fractured and is struggling. There’s a real keen sense of losing himself to the blissful simplicity of a hand, of fingers in him, and when Victor pushes too far and Ethan yelps in pain, it’s a human sound and that’s all he’s after.

“Did that hurt?”

Ethan’s grin turns crooked as he bows his forehead to his hand. Dr. F doesn’t sound very worried. He’s leapfrogged past worry and moved right into curiosity and Ethan’s breathless laugh is as pleased as anything. “Yeah, but don’t stop. Just ease off a bit, would you?” he coaxes and is happy to see that Victor’s as good a student in this as Ethan’s sure he’d been as a kid learning all his ABCs and his 123s and the bones of the human body and the arrogance of the human soul.

They settle into a steady rhythm and soon there’s a heavy silence hanging over them in the air.

Ethan’s ready. Victor wants it, going by the press of his cock against Ethan’s hip. The question is who’s going to break first and maybe if it were anyone else, Ethan would stay stubborn and hold out, but this is Victor’s first time and Ethan hasn’t got the patience to wait around all night when there’s a monstrous part of his soul that’s scratching and eager to get out and howl at the moon, maybe make a new friend and see what makes him tick.

Ethan strains his muscles to reach back and grab hold of Victor by the wrist, hauling him forward so their bodies are pressed flush together.

“C’mon, Victor,” he growls, bending himself over the nearest table and gripping onto it for dear life. “Didn’t those anatomy books of yours teach you anything?”

It seems like he’s hit the bullseye because the affronted sound he drags out from Victor is exactly the kind of sound that comes before something gets proven to him. Ethan isn’t disappointed as Victor slides inside him without so much as a ‘by-your-leave’ and grabs hold of Ethan by the hips with a steadiness that he hadn’t expected of those hands. 

“Everything,” Victor breathes out. “And then nothing at all. The poetry did make up for it,” he says, and bows his head to press a lingering kiss to Ethan’s shoulderblade. In his proximity and with the sweetness of it, Ethan’s reminded of Brona so desperately that he can’t stop the anguished sob of grief that wracks him. “The suffocating sense of woe,” Victor quotes softly in his ear as he fucks him with a determination that goes against everything that Ethan would’ve expected of him.

He slips his hand down to start jerking himself off in time with Victor’s thrusts, time slipping away as he abandons all of his worries and his grief and lets himself sink into the fucking and how much he enjoys it, feeling like he’s outside of the world when he’s in the midst of it. It’s almost a shame when he brings himself to the edge and fucks his hand and himself right over it, collapsing forward on the table and realizing that somewhere along the line, Victor’s stopped moving and has zipped himself back up, sliding the button shut.

“What’s the matter?” Ethan asks hoarsely. 

“You got what you wanted,” Victor says. “I find I’m not inclined to need or want the same things yet.” He paces the room before he settles on the chaise and gives Ethan a look that seems like it’s dancing with so much guilt that it might sink him, but Ethan swipes his hand on his trousers, buckles himself back up, and goes to join him.

With his clean hand, he pushes strands of hair back off Victor’s forehead, feeling like a real shit for taking what he’d needed and nothing else. 

“What can I do to make it up to you?”

Victor looks as if he’s trapped in indecision and Ethan’s not wrong. That’s guilt in his eyes the likes of which he hasn’t seen in a long time, but what he feels guilty about, Ethan doesn’t know. “I always wondered what it would be like, as an adult, to wake up in the arms of another,” he says. “It’s been a very long time since there was anyone to share intimacy with.”

“You want to sleep, all curled up together?” Ethan asks, faintly bemused. “As far as demands go, that’s a pretty easy one, doc,” he points out, wrapping his arms around the man and easing them into a horizontal position on the small chaise, curled in together to save space while giving him the opportunity to bury his face in Victor’s neck and breathe in sweat, sex, and the flowery notes of a perfume long gone.

Victor looks weary, but the man’s always looked weary to Ethan. He wears bags under his eyes like it’s the latest fashion and Ethan hasn’t got a clue why. 

So maybe he can give the man a little peace and quiet. Maybe it’s as simple as needing to hold him close and it’s no hardship, especially after what Victor’s done for him. He feels grounded in a way that he hadn’t before and he knows there’s little chance of the wolf overpowering the man, at least until the next full moon.

“Go to sleep, Victor,” Ethan coaxes. “I’ll be right here.”

“Thee and me,” Victor breathes out the words, something longing and sad in them. “Here in our sanctuary.”

“Yeah,” Ethan agrees, stroking steady fingers through Victor’s hair and staring up at the pock-marked ceiling and thinking that Brona’s drifting away from him, but that’s no reason to stop completely. “Thee and me.”


End file.
